Google recently hosted its annual developer conference, Google I/O 2024, where numerous announcements were made regarding Google’s apps and services. As anticipated, AI was a focal point of the event, being incorporated into almost all Google products. Here is a summary of the major announcements from the event.
The most notable unveiling was the introduction of Google's latest AI model, Gemini 1.5 Pro. This new model, as Google CEO Sundar Pichai put it:
Offers the longest context window of any foundational model yet.
The context window measures the amount of information the model can process at once, and with a 2 million token window, Gemini 1.5 Pro is a significant step forward in AI capabilities.
According to Google:
The Gemini era is here, bringing the magic of AI to the tools you use every day.
Google is previewing a two million context window in Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Flash to developers through a waitlist in Google AI Studio.
In addition to Gemini 1.5 Pro, Google also introduced Project Astra, a future vision for AI that can respond to sight, sounds, voice, and text combined. This project aims to create an AI that can understand and interact with the world in a more human-like manner. Google’s Project Astra is a multimodal AI assistant that the company hopes will become a do-everything virtual assistant that can watch and understand what it sees through your device’s camera.
As mentioned by user @MarioNawfal on X:
Astra aims to integrate multimodal capabilities, including visual and textual inputs, to provide comprehensive assistance.
Google's focus on AI was not limited to these two announcements. The company also revealed a revamped AI-powered search engine, an AI model with an expanded context window of 2 million tokens, AI helpers across its suite of Workspace apps, and tools to integrate its AI into developers' apps.
One of the interesting features of the new search engine is the AI Overviews. These overviews summarize web content in response to complex queries, providing users a quick and easy way to find the information they need. However, this feature has also raised concerns among website publishers, who fear it could lead to a decline in traffic and ad revenue.
Google has also made strides in the accessibility of its AI technology. The company announced that it will soon offer schools access to Gemini AI, specifically for educators and students over the age of 18. It has also promised not to use data from these customers for AI model training or share it with anyone.
The Google I/O 2024 event was a clear indication of Google's commitment to advancing AI technology and integrating it into its products. With the introduction of Gemini 1.5 Pro and Project Astra, it's clear that Google believes the industry is on the cusp of a new era in AI; one that promises to change how we interact with technology.